Friday (I'm in Love)
by Tsuki no Tennyo
Summary: Sess/Kag. AU One-Shot. — "Speed dating? Isn't that for losers who can't get a date on their own?"


**Author's Note:** So…apparently after nearly five years, I've been hit with a sudden craving for some Sess/Kag-ness. I'm not too sure what brought this on, so just enjoy this dumb thing I wrote to satisfy my craving.

**Disclaimer:** Inuyasha belongs to Takahashi Rumiko.

* * *

**Friday (I'm in Love)**  
_By Tsuki no Tennyo_

"Speed dating? Isn't that for losers who can't get a date on their own?"

Miroku and Sango both glanced at one another briefly before tossing Kagome a pointed look, to which she responded immediately with a glare.

"What are you insinuating?" Kagome demanded.

"We're not insinuating anything! Those were your words, my dear Kagome."

"Besides," Sango cut in, "it _has_ been a while since you and Inuyasha broken up. You both left on good terms and all, but tell us, when was the last time you went out with someone?"

"Or met someone," Miroku muttered under his breath, earning a quick jab in the rib from Sango's elbow.

Kagome glared at her two so-called friends. "Houjou! I went on a date with Houjou last…" Her voice trailed off as her face grew paler. She let out a low gasp. "Two years ago. Oh dear god, has it been two years since I've met someone?"

"Two years since you last went on a date." Miroku let out a sly whistle. "Imagine how long it must have been since she let anyone between those legs." He immediately regretted his words when both Sango and Kagome slapped and punched him, respectively.

"Speaking of Houjou," Miroku started again, rubbing his abused areas. "Was it really a date, or was he just helping you carry your grocery home?"

Kagome felt miffed at the accusation, but she couldn't really find any way to object without making herself look bad. She sighed, knowing her friends were only trying to be helpful, even if it was butting into her love life, or rather, nonexistent love life. Thinking back to Miroku's earlier uncouth comment, her stomach dropped upon realizing with dismay that her sex life was also as dead as a doornail.

She let out a louder, defeated sigh. "If I'm going to end up meeting a sociopath with a feet fetish, it's going to be on your heads!"

Sango immediately hugged Kagome, happy to see her friend coming around to their plan. Miroku, however, couldn't get past her threat.

"Feet fetish, huh? Kagome dear, have you been out with someone with that oddly specific fetish? Was it Inuyasha? Am I going to have to have a talk with him? Is he going to have to introduce me to feet porn so I can better understand his interest?"

"Miroku," Sango's voice dropped low, her hand was twitching to harm her boyfriend. "Darling, if you don't stop now, I cannot promise that you won't be walking funny tomorrow."

"Walking funny, huh—_oh_…" Miroku let out a soft squeak. He reached for his wallet in his back pocket. "Sango, Kagome, would you like to borrow my credit card to go shopping and have a makeover for your speed dating?"

Kagome swiped the offered credit card with a slight grin. "You're a great friend, Miroku. And Sango's the greatest best friend a girl could have."

She pulled along her still fuming friend. Sango made one last threatening gesture before leaving with Kagome. Miroku could only gulp before calling Inuyasha on his cellphone.

"Inuyasha? I think I need to crash at your place tonight. You know…for my health."

"Idiot," Inuyasha responded with a snort over the line, already having a clear idea of what happened.

**.**

Kagome fidgeted in her seat at a small table, trying very hard to resist the urge to toy with her hair that had endured two hours at the salon to be curled and styled just right for this night. Opposite from her was a random guy the coordinator had seated in front of her for their 'date'. They were both waiting, listening as the coordinators of the event went over the rules and general objective of speed dating. She looked around, counting twenty tables in two rows.

_Ten minutes each, twenty tables_., She went over the rules again in her head. _So this should take a little over three hours…_

She looked at her partner again, seeing him grin at her awkwardly. She could only respond with her own uncomfortable smile.

_Sango, Miroku, I'll kill you both if this thing's a bust._

Kagome was snapped back to reality when she heard the bell, signaling for the date to begin.

**.**

(Miroku and Sango sat down on the stools at the bar in the hotel that was also hosting the speed dating event. Miroku wiped the lens of the binoculars he had brought along just for this occasion. He was cool as a cucumber, but his girlfriend, on the other hand, was far from it.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," Sango started, feeling a sudden sense of guilt. "Maybe she's happy being by herself. Maybe we shouldn't force archaic expectations on her. Maybe she's happy just being with her cat. Maybe—"

"Oh, look, here comes Inuyasha and Kikyou to stop your hyperventilating."

Kikyou sat down on the stool next to Sango and looked at her worriedly. "What's wrong?"

"She's worried Kagome's is either going to die an unhappy spinster or a miserable wife."

"Two years," Sango reminded all of them of Kagome's celibate period.

"Look on the bright side," Kikyou offered, "She at least have great friends who care about her."

"Yo! Can I get a beer over here?"

Kikyou glared at Inuyasha, adding as an afterthought, "Three out of four is not that bad.")

**.**

The eleventh bell rang, ushering the men to move one table over for their new date. Kagome had met a wide arrange of men in the span of roughly an hour, but truth be told, she either felt no attraction or was immensely repulsed by them.

_Maybe I have high standards_, she wondered to herself, watching as a new man settled into the seat opposite of her.

"So I'm going to set this straight right off the bat: I like girls with pretty feet."

Her stomach twisted, her mind shut down, and before she knew it, her arm shot up, surprising everyone around her.

"Please ring the bell."

"Um," one of the coordinators approached her, "Miss, we-we've just started this round."

"I'll wait then."

The next ten minutes crept by achingly slow as she bore holes into the man opposite from her, who kept trying to inconspicuously check out her feet from under the table.

"Please stop."

_Nope, no high standards. Just regular human expectations of decency._

**.**

"Kagome-neechan?!"

Kagome let out her own surprise gasp as she looked at the man—no, _boy_—sitting down across from her.

"Kohaku? What are you doing here?"

"Um," Kohaku rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "My friends put me up to this."

"Wait, weren't you going out with Rin-chan?"

"Ah," Kohaku sunk lower into his seat. "Well…you see…um…does Sango-neechan know you're here?"

"Yes, she and Miroku made me come. Now, answer my question."

"Well," Kohaku could feel himself shrinking smaller under Kagome's curious, almost scrutinizing gaze.

"So Rin and I had a date, you see, but then Souta said something that Rin thought was true, but it really isn't, and she got mad, and she broke up with me and has been ignoring me for three weeks. And then Souta and some guys saw a flyer about this speed dating event and made me come and—"

"One moment, dear, I need to give my sweet little a brother a phone call. You, by the way, should ditch this event and go explain and make up with Rin-chan before she finds someone else."

Kohaku nodded, knowing she was right but also unsure of what to do to rectify the situation. He winced when he heard Kagome screaming through her phone. He could only imagine Souta was probably cowering on the other end, probably counting down the minutes until his beloved sister stop by the house to give him a mouthful face-to-face.

"So," Kagome carefully put her phone away, smiling pleasantly at the younger boy who was still stunned by her earlier mood change, "how's college?"

**.**

("Kohaku?!" Sango's screech was immediately quieted by both Miroku and Inuyasha.

"He's a big boy. He's a man, Sango, you must let him grow up," Miroku said gravely.

Sango's pushed the hands aside, glaring at Miroku. "That's not the problem. He's supposed to be dating Rin-chan."

"Oh, right." Miroku gave her a lopsided smile.

"Wait, what if there's a connection between the two," Inuyasha pondered aloud.

"That won't be a problem," Kikyou answered, looking through Miroku's binoculars. "She's screaming into her phone."

"…")

**.**

Kagome played around with her skirt, and then she switched to twiddling with her rings. The sixteenth bell had rang and the men were changing seats immediately. The only upside to this situation was that the event was nearing the end. The downside, however, seemed to be that she wasted over three hours of her life to meeting losers who were probably single for a reason.

"My name's Kouga!"

She jumped a little in her seat, startled by the sudden booming, confident voice. She held out a weak hand, "I'm Kagome."

"Kagome, huh? You know, you're really cute."

She had an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach for the umpteenth time that night, but she decided she should still try to be polite and carry on the conversation. "Um, thank you, Kouga."

"Can you picture a house full of little feet running through it?"

"Well, kind of, but isn't it too early to be talking about children?"

"Just picture it: fifteen pair of feet running up and down the stairs, inside and outside the house, yelling 'mama' and 'papa'!"

"W-wait, _fifteen?!_"

Kouga instantly grabbed her hands, holding them up close to him in earnest. "Oh, if you want more, we can always have more. I'll be the most devoted husband and father ever and…"

Slowly, Kagome found herself losing focus in what Kouga was saying. At the thought of birthing fifteen children, Kagome found herself wishing for the bell to ring for the sake of her poor womb.

_This is the worst night ever, I ought to clobber those two._

**.**

("You know," Miroku took a sip of his drink at the bar while his other hand was holding the pair of binoculars to his eyes. "I don't think this is working out quite like we wanted it to, Sango."

Sango leaned against the bar counter, looking straight across the room to where the event was taking place. She watched Kagome's face change from surprise to shock to despair in a matter of a nanosecond. "G-give it time, she still has three men left."

"Wait, Inuyasha, is that who I think it is?"

Inuyasha had his glass of beer to his lips when he was stopped by Miroku's inquiry. He didn't need to look at who Miroku was gesturing, but he shrugged anyway. "He lost a dare," he supplied as if that was enough of an explanation. "To Kikyou."

A smirk graced Inuyasha's face at that last afterthought. He instantly wrapped his arm around his girlfriend, who hid a small smile under the sleeves of her kimono cardigan.

Sango raised a brow. "Funny, I never picture you as the mischievous type, Kikyou."

"It's the quiet ones you have to be careful of," Miroku explained to his girlfriend.

"I think this'll be cute," Kikyou added, gesturing to the room across from them.

Inuyasha could only roll his eyes and keh'ed. "Whatever, I still think Kagome could do better than that asshole."

"You think a goldfish deserves someone better than him," Kikyou countered.

"Don't bother, Kikyou," Miroku interrupted, "This is what most people call 'sibling rivalry.'"

"Quiet, quiet," Sango shushed her friends. "The next guy's up, and he's, kind of…dreamy looking…"

"Hey!"

"No, she's right, he is dreamy," Kikyou tilted her head slightly. "What a nice ass…" She instinctively buried her reddened face in her sleeves, trying to muffle out her boyfriend's protests.)

**.**

"Bankotsu, was it? So have you been in Tokyo long?"

"Kind of? I've been here about a year."

Silence followed their talk. The chatters of others around them seemed to only intensify in volume as they both looked around in vain, trying to find a subject to talk about in the precious ten minutes they have together.

"So this event is kind of dumb, right?" Kagome asked with a half-hearted laugh, trying to force a conversation between the two.

Bankotsu remained silent. Kagome noticed he seemed annoyed at her. "Um, sorry, but did I say something wrong?"

Bankotsu continued to remain silence another few seconds, and then he said, "My best friend is running this event."

Kagome could feel daggers piercing her as she prayed for the gods above to be merciful and just open the ground up and swallow her whole. Instead, the gods answered her with ring, a sound which Kagome had come to relish and equate with divinity.

**.**

By the last ring of the night, Kagome had her head buried into her arms, quite certain she was doomed to be a spinster. She could hear the sounds of the chair pulling back and muffled talks were beginning, but she didn't care. She just wished for the night to be over.

She could hear someone clearing their throat, and then: "If I'm going to spend the last ten minutes of this night staring at a mound of hair, then I'm leaving now, miss."

Kagome looked up, if only to have a face to direct her annoyance. She let out a gasp. "Sess-Sesshoumaru?"

"Yes?"

"It's me, Kagome! Inuyasha's girl—ex-girlfriend!"

"I'm quite aware of who you are."

She frowned, not particularly fond of his matter-of-factly tone. "You do realize girls don't really go for the aloof looks, right?"

There was a pause.

"What aloof look?" Sesshoumaru arched one brow, genuinely unaware of what Kagome was implying.

"Wait, are you telling me, all these years you've been ignoring everyone and talking shit, you didn't realize you were acting like a wannabe aloof loner asshole with no social life?"

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Kagome started, trying to wave off his threatening look, "it's been a long night, and I just don't have a filter anymore after the three hours of bullshit that happened. Wait, why are _you_ here?"

"It's a free country, I can be here if I want to be," He refuted, not even trying to assuage Kagome's suspicion.

**.**

("Can you read her mouth, Miroku?" Sango squinted, trying to get a good look at the scene.

"Something, something, something, something, wait…I think she just called him an asshole."

"Ha! I told you this wouldn't end well! Pay up, Kikyou!"

"The night is not over, Inuyasha. They still have eight minutes left."

"Keh. Fine, you can hold on to your money another eight minutes."

"Are you betting on your half-brother and ex-girlfriend hooking up?" Miroku lowered the binoculars to glance over at the two.

"Maybe," Inuyasha and Kikyou answered weakly.

"I want in."

Sango nudged Miroku hard in the rib, forcing him to return to his earlier task of spying on Kagome.)

**.**

"So it looks like you had an interesting night." Sesshoumaru looked behind him to one of Kagome's earlier dates.

"Oh, god."

"You were raising your hand earlier."

"Oh, god."

"What was that about?"

"Oh, god."

Sesshoumaru leaned in closer when he heard Kagome squeaked something. He raised a brow. He was actually curious now. "What was that?"

"HehasafeetfetishohmygodIwanttodie." Kagome buried her face again, shuddering at the memory of earlier that night. She waited, quite certain Sesshoumaru would get up and leave. Contrary to her belief, though, he stayed, and his own recollection proved to be just as mortifying as hers.

"You see that girl in the skimpy outfit over there?"

Kagome looked up towards where Sesshoumaru gestured. She nodded slightly, "The girl with the bob haircut?"

"She has a hair fetish."

Kagome gasped, covering her mouth. She then looked at Sesshoumaru's long hair that he kept tied back in a low ponytail. She pointed a shaky finger at him. "A-and she—"

He gave a solemn nod. "She wants to wear my hair like a ritzy dress from the Roaring '20s, whatever that means."

She grabbed his hand, and stroked it gently, offering her own consolation. "You know, you're not as bad as Inuyasha made you out to be."

Sesshoumaru stared. "Likewise."

She sighed inwardly, but her smile remained.

**.**

("What's happening?!" Inuyasha pulled Miroku's binoculars out of his hands.

"She's stroking his hand," Miroku answered, earning a glare from Inuyasha.

"Oh, Inuyasha," Kikyou sung, grabbing her boyfriend's attention.

"Four minutes left," he growled.)

**.**

"Did you know Inuyasha had mecha anime bed sheets until he was fourteen?"

"No," Kagome half-squealed, half-howled delightedly, her hands clapped together to show her enthusiasm. She stopped in her giggle momentarily, catching Sesshoumaru's attention. "Well, now that I think about it, it _does_ kind of explain his insistence on watching the latest mecha anime film when we were dating."

Sesshoumaru smirked at that little comment. The smirk faltered a little hearing her follow up thought:

"It's cute, though, huh? Having an interest you're so passionate about."

"For an ex-girlfriend, you are talking peculiarly pleasant about your ex."

"Is that weird? I mean, it's not like we had a nasty breakup or anything like that."

"Hm."

"A-are you upset about that?"

His lack of response answered Kagome's question. Just as she was about to change the subject, a familiar bell rang throughout the room, cutting conversations to their final ends. The coordinators announced that the speed dating was over, but they would have an after party of sorts to allow people to continue mingling.

"Want to leave?"

Kagome turned towards her final companion, surprised by the offer. She looked at him curiously, unable to decipher his expression.

"There is this great little café down the street that's still opened late."

"Is this a line?"

He shrugged.

She laughed.

"Sesshoumaru, you have a surprisingly lack of social skills."

"Or perhaps I don't enjoy condensing conversations into ten minutes."

She reached for the offered hand, making a mental note to thank Sango and Miroku for urging her to take a chance tonight.

**.**

("Pay up." Kikyou held her hand out, watching with delight as Inuyasha begrudgingly reached into his wallet.

"This was still unexpected," Sango remarked, peering through the binoculars and watching as Sesshoumaru and Kagome walked hand-in-hand out of the hotel. "It's so…"

"Surreal," Miroku finished. "Imagine if things work out and they get married." He grinned, slapping Inuyasha on the back and ignoring the glare he received. "Then your ex-girlfriend would be your new sister-in-law!"

"Shut up. This won't last three days, I can guarantee it!"

"Care to make a wager, honey?" Kikyou fanned herself with her newly acquired money.

Miroku stared at the two. "This might not be my place, but I'm pretty sure this is not a healthy foundation in a relationship to wager bets on other people's relationships."

"I'll bet my entire paycheck next week that they will break up by next Friday!"

"Deal." Kikyou shook Inuyasha's hand, placing a quick kiss on his lips to seal the deal.

Miroku sighed, wrapping his arms around Sango. "At least we have a healthy relationship, right Sango darling?"

"Of course," Sango reached behind her, grabbing Miroku's hand and adjusting it more upwards. "All things considered."

"Sorry, old habits.")

**.**

Kagome took a sip of her coffee, savoring the pleasant, warm earthy aroma mingling with the sweet, delicate vanilla. She lowered her mug, looking at her date seriously. "Did you ever get the feeling you were being watched?"

Sesshoumaru lowered his own mug. He looked at her curiously, not quite following where she was heading with the sudden question.

"I could've sworn someone was watching me during the event, like, _all night_."

Sesshoumaru shrugged. "There were lots of people there." He took another sip before continuing. "Perhaps it was me."

"You?" She stared at him incredulously.

He placed the mug at his lips, pretending to drink. She could see through his charade immediately. Kagome reached next to her companion, carefully lowering the hot beverage. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared into his calm face, almost as if she was just now truly looking at him for the first time ever.

"We've never really talked like this before," she whispered, still a little captivated.

"No, no, we haven't," he responded softly, leaning down, his hand was stroking her cheek gently.

She could feel her heart doing flips while her stomach twisted again. "We've known each for nearly two decades through Inuyasha, and yet, we've never talked like this…"

He pulled her into a deep kiss to silence her rambling thoughts, and she allowed herself to be silenced. Her thoughts were jumbled by bewilderment and disbelief. This was the farthest thing from her mind when earlier this morning she agreed to attend the ludicrous event. Everything was moving too fast, and yet, she also wanted more.

They pulled apart, panting softly, still shaken by the sudden act. Kagome's face was flushed and she was absolutely sure her heart was racing at the speed of light towards infinity and back. She could only wonder if he was feeling the same, though the thought of it seemed far too unnatural to even be remotely true.

"I'd like to see you again," he finally whispered after a moment of silence, breath almost feverish with yearning.

"The night's not over yet."

She stood up, and this time, it was her turn to offer a hand to him.

He gladly reached for it, following her out the door and towards a new beginning.

_Best night ever_, she thought, tightening her hold on his hand.


End file.
